Windows 10: BSOD - even in safe mode - CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED ... 0x000000EF

My machine started getting occasional blue screens with the code "The CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED bug check has a value of 0x000000EF" pointing to ntoskrnl in August. First once by itself. Then it happened again, maybe once every few days. Figured it was graphics card related, so in late August I updated drivers, cleaned out case, reseated components, etc.Starting in September though, its stepped up to hourly, or even within minutes of each other. I'm getting this even in Safe Mode, and no other drivers were updated recently.
Brought it to a hardware shop, but they couldn't find any problems - tested memory, graphics card, disks, motherboard, virus scanned - only time it stopped crashing was when they swapped in another hdd running a new OS - but I'm not convinced that its my OS install. Ran SFC /scannow and DISM - they found nothing. Chkdsk was clean too.
The behavior I've observed also has been pointing to something disk related - sometimes before the crash I'll notice that both drives are no longer accessible via Explorer. Also, whenever I get the bsod, it can't restart - fails with a startup error that A Required Device Cannot be Detected. If I do a physical reboot, it works fine after that.Not sure what to do at this point to narrow down the problem source. Oh - one new fact - I now have a pretty consistent way to reproduce this... it tends to BSOD while running the DM tool - took five tries to run fully - died twice on copying event log, and the other times in places before and after that- and no other software open *Sad
Any advice appreciated - even if this is disk related not sure how to figure out where in the chain (OS, HDD, Motherboard, etc) this is coming from.
Attachment 152552

:)

 

Need help with DMP file after Driver Verifier BSOD

I managed to use that prompt command but it still won't boot into safe mode correctly. Those rare times I manage to get to windows my PC would still crash to a "critical_process_died" bsod after a couple of minutes, even in safe mode.

I haven't got a win 10 Dvd because I updated from windows 8 via download and never created a media Dvd or boot usb device.

It also won't let me try to reset the PC because it says that the hd is "locked".

 

CONSTANT BSOD ERROR - CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED

I have the exact same problem on my Surface Book.

Constraint BSOD (I have about 15 seconds to try and get it into Safe Mode, etc. after each boot) with CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED.

This problem persists in Safe Mode.

This problem persists in recovery screens.

There are NO DMP files, no mini dump files, etc.

My beautiful Surface Book is now my nightmare.

 

Hello dtolman,

Unfortunately your zip file is empty so we can't see any of your logfiles. Please try again.

From your description it sounds like the problem is disk related.






Diagnostics Test

HDD TEST
*Arrow Run HDTune to

• check the health,
• scan for errors, no quick scan but full scan
• run a benchmark.

It may take some time, but please take the time you need to perform it properly.
When above is done please make screenshots of the following

• the health,
• the error scan,
• the benchmark incl. following
  • transfer rate,
  • access time,
  • burst rate,
  • cpu usage.

 

Sorry about that - here's the file - checked this time and its not 0 bytes.
Attachment 152593
I'm downloading the suggested utility now.

 

In a stroke of luck, I managed to run it against my C:\ drive (system drive) without a crash. It then promptly crashed when I tried to post this the first time, LOL. I didn't run against my D:\ drive (data drive) - not sure if it can stay up long enough to scan a 2 TB drive...

Attachment 152603Attachment 152604Attachment 152605

 

Open file explorer > this PC > local C: drive > right upper corner search > type: C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP

Please post a share link using one drive or drop box to post this memory dump file into the thread.

 

Its too large for me to upload without several crashes (1 gb), so it'll have to wait until tomorrow when I'm at work to post.
I have windbg on the system, so if there is anything from it you want me to post in the meantime, just let me know.
Thanks!

 

Memory dump file is posted to MEMORY.DMP - Google Drive

FYI - I activated Windows Driver Verifier, so if its a driver issue should be in the .dmp file - tried to see if I could find any entries in the dmp file from it, but not seeing anything - but that could be my inexperience...

 

The memory.dmp file you just uploaded is from your last recorded crash on Sept 9th. It will not have any data relating to Driver Verifier until you get a new memory.dmp from a new BSOD event triggered by the verifier.

 

I activated the Driver Verifier before that, and verified that it was active from the command line (verifier /querysettings) after doing a reboot - so it should be logging in there...

EDIT: Unless it only adds entries if Verifier triggers the BSOD? I noticed no change in the stop code after activating Verifier, so its possible it didn't catch anything...

 

This is result from a verifier query within the .dmp file:

Code: 3: kd> !verifier -f Verify Flags Level 0x00000000 STANDARD FLAGS: [ ] (0x00000000) Automatic Checks [ ] (0x00000001) Special pool [ ] (0x00000002) Force IRQL checking [ ] (0x00000008) Pool tracking [ ] (0x00000010) I/O verification [ ] (0x00000020) Deadlock detection [ ] (0x00000080) DMA checking [ ] (0x00000100) Security checks [ ] (0x00000800) Miscellaneous checks [ ] (0x00020000) DDI compliance checking ADDITIONAL FLAGS: [ ] (0x00000004) Randomized low resources simulation [ ] (0x00000200) Force pending I/O requests [ ] (0x00000400) IRP logging [ ] (0x00002000) Invariant MDL checking for stack [ ] (0x00004000) Invariant MDL checking for driver [ ] (0x00008000) Power framework delay fuzzing [ ] (0x00010000) Port/miniport interface checking [ ] (0x00040000) Systematic low resources simulation [ ] (0x00080000) DDI compliance checking (additional) [ ] (0x00200000) NDIS/WIFI verification [ ] (0x00800000) Kernel synchronization delay fuzzing [ ] (0x01000000) VM switch verification [ ] (0x02000000) Code integrity checks [X] Indicates flag is enabled Summary of All Verifier Statistics RaiseIrqls 0x0 AcquireSpinLocks 0x0 Synch Executions 0x0 Trims 0x0 Pool Allocations Attempted 0x0 Pool Allocations Succeeded 0x0 Pool Allocations Succeeded SpecialPool 0x0 Pool Allocations With NO TAG 0x0 Pool Allocations Failed 0x0 Current paged pool allocations 0x0 for 00000000 bytes Peak paged pool allocations 0x0 for 00000000 bytes Current nonpaged pool allocations 0x0 for 00000000 bytes Peak nonpaged pool allocations 0x0 for 00000000 bytes[/quote] This tells me Driver Verifier was not enabled.

 

If you upload another memory.dmp you may wish to compress it first, to save yourself some time.

 

OK. Odd - this dmp must be from before I activated verifier - verifier /querysettings returned driver results, so it should have been active. I'll see if I can trigger another BSOD and see if the dmp file updates.

Is there anything useful in there even without driver verifier entries? I wasn't asked to activate that originally, so I don't want to side-track if it isn't needed *Smile

BTW - I truly appreciate the help!

 

Looked to see if any of your device nodes were having pnp or power problems:

The webcam was picked up as being disabled and your SCSI Virtual Clone Drive had an error:

Code: ******************************************************************************** Dumping devnodes with problems... ******************************************************************************** Dumping IopRootDeviceNode (= 0xffffd88b7cf35d30) DevNode 0xffffd88b7f92d010 for PDO 0xffffd88b7f925060 InstancePath is "USB\VID_046D&PID_0809&MI_00\7&4e7b938&0&0000" ServiceName is "LVUVC64" State = DeviceNodeInitialized (0x302) Previous State = DeviceNodeUninitialized (0x301) Problem = CM_PROB_DISABLED Problem Status = 0x00000000 DevNode 0xffffd88b7d1fdd30 for PDO 0xffffd88b7d1fd060 InstancePath is "ROOT\SCSIADAPTER\0000" ServiceName is "VClone" State = DeviceNodeStartPostWork (0x307) Previous State = DeviceNodeStartCompletion (0x306) Problem = CM_PROB_INVALID_DATA Problem Status = 0xc0040038[/quote] Could the V Clone be involved - what do you do with this?